P3 











THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY 

HIGH SCHOOL 






BY 

Principal Charles C. Parlin 

WAUSAU, WISCONSIN 






This paper was delivered 
as the President's address 
of the Northeast Wisconsin 
Teacher's Association, at 
Oshkosh, February 4, 1910, 
and was ordered by the Asso- 
ciation to be printed and cir- 
culated throughout the state. 





n3£ 

There are more students enrolled in the 
High School Oshkosh high school to-day, than there 
Growth. were nineteen years ago, in the combined 

high schools of Antigo, Appleton, Ashland, 
Fond du Lac, Fort Howard, Green Bay, Grand Rapids, Mari- 
nette, Merrill, Sheboygan and Wausau. In corroboration of 
this statement let me call your attention to this chart: 

Twelve Largest High Schools of Northeast Wisconsin. 



CITY 


Pop 


illation 


High School 
Enrollment 


High School 
Graduates 




1890 


1910 


1891 


1910 


1891 


1910 


Antigo . ... 


4,428 
11,869 

9,956 
12.024 

9,069 

4,754 

1,702 
11,523 

6,809 
16,359 

9,253 


7,500 
17,000 
14,000 
20,000 

\ 25,000 

7,600 
16,000 
10,000 
25,000 
16,000 


11 

70 
30 
155 
39 
16 
30 
82 
35 
56 
74 


321 
350 
381 
450 
279 
241 
261 
376 
267 
357 
471 



11 

4 
15 


5 
8 
3 
5 
5 
12 


60 


Appleton 


35 


Ashland 

Fond du Lac 


45 
65 


Green Bay (East) .... 

*Fort Howard 

Grand Rapids 


42 
30 
39 


Marinette 


55 


Merrill 


49 


Sheboygan 


60 


Wausau 


60 






Total 


97,746 


,1^8,100 


598 


3774 


68 


540 






Oshkosh 


22,836 


; £3,000 


139 


637 


18 


84 







* Indicates Green Bay, West. 

Increase in population, 62%. 

Increase in High School Enrollment, 531%. 

Increase in High School Graduates, 694%. 

In 1891, Boys 37%, Girls 63%. 

In 1910, Boys 46%, Girls 54%. 

This chart shows comparative population, high school 
enrollment, and high. school graduation for the school years 
of 1890-91, and 1909-10, of the twelve largest high schools 
of northeast Wisconsin. It shows that whereas the other 
eleven schools in 1891 had 5 94 students enrolled, Oshkosh 
high school alone this year, it is estimated, will enroll 637. 
It shows that whereas the other eleven, nineteen years ago, 
graduated 68 pupils, Oshkosh high school alone this year 
expects to graduate 84. That is, Oshkosh high school alone, 
in terms of students enrolled, and of graduates completing 
their courses, is to-day a greater high school than were the 

2 

&& 
Author 

(F*r, ; .. 

APR 19 1910 



other eleven high schools combined, less than twenty years 
ago. 

But striking as is that fact, the more striking fact of 
these statistics is the marvellous growth of these high 
schools. Every one of these schools has experienced an as- 
tonishing growth; While the population of these cities has 
increased only 62%, the high school enrollment has in- 
creased 531%, and high school graduation has increased 
694%. That is, the nineteenth century high school was for 
a few, the twentieth century high school is for the many. 
In the old high school, the pupils were chiefly of three 
classes: First, a small number of boys, definitely planning 
to take professional courses in colleges; second, a larger 
number of girls planning definitely to teach; and third, and 
by far the largest class of all, both boys and girls who were 
not yet old enough or strong enough to go to work, or whose 
parents for some reason, did not wish them as yet to begin 
labor. These were in the high school not with a definite pur- 
pose of fitting themselves for a life work, but because in a 
general sort of a way the high school was a good place to 
be. Boys and girls that did definitely intend to enter indus- 
try were already in the shops and factories. 

The twentieth century high school has, to 
The High be sure, all these three classes, but it has 
School in addition a very large number of boys 

Transformed, and girls who are consciously fitting them- 
selves to take places in the commercial and 
industrial life. Notice, for example, that while only 37% 
of the old high school were boys, 46% of the new are boys. 
The high school then has not merely increased in size; it 
has changed its scope; it has ceased to be an academy, aim- 
ing on the one hand to prepare for college, and on the other, 
to give a veneer of culture to the leasure classes, and has 
become instead what has been truly called "The people's 
college," a great education institution in which the masses 
are being definitely trained for their life work. We have 
lived in the midst of the greatest educational revolution 
the world has ever known, and have realized it not. Never 
before have the masses so awaked to a desire for higher 
education. Never before was a great educational need, so 
promptly and efficiently met. 

The twentieth century high school is, then, 

High School for everybody; but some people in every 

for community do not know it, and it devolves 

Everybody. upon you high school principals to awaken 

the sleepers. Attend the parents' meetings 

of the ward principals, and say to the parents: "The high 

school is for your boy; if he is not there he is being deprived 



of that to which he is fairly entitled. Other boys are getting 
a high school education; if your boy is not, he will have to 
run the race of life against a big handicap." Call upon Mr. 
Peterowski in the nineteenth ward and say, "Mary is a 
bright girl; why is she not in school?" Perhaps he will re- 
piy: "I sent my older girl thru high school and she helped 
me scarcely a bit. She only taught one year and then she 
got married. Perhaps you will not get Mary, but you will 
get food for reflection on the theme: "What are girls for, 
anyway?" Go to the little cottage at the very outskirts and 
ask Mr. Olson why Ole did not return to school. Perhaps 
tears will come to his eyes, and he will say: "Did you miss 
him? I didn't suppose anyone in that big school would miss 
my boy. But, God bless you, sir, if you miss him, he shall 
be there." That man has a new vision. A stranger in a for- 
eign land, he thought the world had little place for him or 
his, but now for the first time he catches a glimpse of new 
possibilities for his boy. Yonder big high school is for every- 
body and in it is a niche which his boy is expected to fill; 
and when he is gone, someone has missed him. 

With this transformation has come a new 
A New functionary, or rather new importance to 

Principal. an old functionary. "High school princi- 
pal" ceases to be a supernumary title of 
the city superintendent; nor does it longer designate an 
especially favored teacher whom the Board wishes to reward 
with more salary. It describes the real head of "Every- 
body's college," one who bears the chief disciplinary, admin- 
istrative and supervisional burdens of a great educational 
institution. Such a position should be something more than 
a training school for superintendents; to fill the position 
well is in itself a worthy ambition. The high school prin- 
cipal should be a man of no less talent, no less education, 
no less experience than the superintendent. His salary 
should be such that the superintendency would not on that 
account be sought by him; he should have a seat with the 
Board of Education that he may be consulted as to all mat- 
ters pertaining to the high school, and he should be allowed 
and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the com- 
munity. 

"But," you ask, "do you propose to make the principal 
independent of the superintendent?" By no means — that 
would be indeed unfortunate. The principal and superin- 
tendent should be in constant consultation. In discipline 
and in all matters directly dealing with pupils, the principal 
alone should act; for any assistance of the superintendent 
in directly handling pupils, however tactful and efficient 
he may be, is likely to lessen that conviction of the finality 



of the principal's decisions which is essential to easy and 
effective discipline. In all that pertains to equipment, choice 
of teachers, course of study, and methods of instruction, 
both men in conjunction with the proper committees of the 
Board of Education, should share in determining the policy. 
Such a principal, loyally supporting his city superintendent, 
and in turn supported by the superintendent, can give a 
strength to both officials that neither would have alone. 

But why has the effective high school principalship 
been slow in developing? Partly because of the expense of 
paying two first-class salaries instead of oner That, how- 
ever, I think is only a minor reason. The chief difficulty is 
that too many men are like Caesar, they can brook no equal, 
The superintendent fears that if he develops a really impor- 
tant high school principal that, like the Arab's camel that 
was allowed on a wintry night to put his head in the tent, 
the principal will soon take possession of the whole tent and 
crowd the owner out into the cold. And too many principals 
justify the suspicion; for they, too, are like Caesar and wait 
with ill-concealed impatience for the day when they in turn 
may have the one man power. 

The remedy for this, it seems to me, is to make the two 
positions so nearly equal in salary and dignity that neither 
will covet the other's place, and then get two men who will 
agree. But suppose they do not agree? In that case, the 
Board is usually wise enough to discharge them both and 
get two new ones. Many Wisconsin accidents impress on su- 
perintendents and principals a modern application for Benja- 
man Franklin's warning to the colonists: "We must hang 
together or we will hang separately." 

In the second place, with this transforma- 

A New tion has come a new type of high school 

Teacher. teacher. In the old school a young lady, 

scarcely beyond the senior pupil in age or 
attainments, with youthful enthusiasm, led them along the 
path of knowledge which she had just trod. In those "good 
old days" a Normal school diploma sufficed; yesterday, we 
were satisfied with a College diploma; to-day, we want a 
Master's degree; to-morrow, it shall be a Ph. D., and I am 
looking daily for the announcement of a new and higher 
degree, to which the teacher of the future shall be expected 
to aspire. The high school teacher is now a specialist; she 
knows not merely the path that leads to the foot of the 
mountain, but she herself has trod the arduous road that 
led to the peak from which she has looked backward over 
the sunlit fields of truth already known, and has even 
peered forward into the mist covered valleys of truth yet 
undiscovered. That such a teacher is better equipped, that 



she may be vastly more efficient than the earlier one, is too 
evident to need statement. But with this increased efficiency 
has come some loss. In the old school, the race of the pupil 
with his teacher, to see who first would get to the end of 
the book, or to determine who should gain the greater mas- 
tery of the subject, was an inspiration that often awoke a 
lazy but capable boy to almost superhuman efforts. 

The new teacher has greater need of pedagogy than the 
old, for the old teacher was enabled to lead her classes by 
that mysterious intuition by which one child teaches an- 
other. A small boy needs no knowledge of pedagogy to 
instruct his younger brother how to play base-ball. Were it 
not so, our great national game would be extinct. But the 
teacher who has long ago forgotten the difficulties of the 
first start and whose learning is so profound that the fresh- 
man in his wildest dreams never dares hope to attain to 
such erudition, has great need of pedagogy that will enable 
her to understand the child's mind and to learn by observa- 
tion those difficulties which she can no longer see by intui- 
tion. Hence we have the new University School of Educa- 
tion, which I believe will do a much needed service to sec- 
ondary instruction in Wisconsin. 

In the third place, we have a new material 

A New equipment. Twenty years ago these cities 

Equipment. built high schools with assembly halls to 

seat sixty pupils, and a recitation room for 

one assistant, and thought they had provided for their city's 

secondary education for all time. More recently they have 

built assembly halls to seat 5l>0 pupils, and recitation rooms 

to render possible the work of twenty teachers. But already 

some of these have proved too small, and we are beginning 

to have agitation for new buildings that will accomodate 

1,000 or 1,500 pupils. 

The entire equipment of at least one of these high 
schools twenty years ago, library, maps, apparatus, and even 
desks included, could not have been sold for $100. To-day 
the equipment of one of the smallest of these schools will 
run up to many thousands of dollars. 

In the fourth place, we have a new type of 
A New support. Twenty years ago there could be 

Support. found in the local papers of these cities 
articles written by honest and thoughtful 
men, asking seriously the question, "Is high school educa- 
tion worth while? Is it really the proper function of a com- 
munity to attempt to furnish more than common school in- 
struction?" When the high school was for the few, the sup- 



port was faltering; but now that the high school is for 
everybody, the support is unanimous and enthusiastic. 

These cities take peculiar pride in their 
Who Created high schools; first, because they feel they 
the own them; and, second, because they feel 

High School? they created them. This marvellous high 
school development has not been brought 
about by the efforts of colleges. In the things that have 
transformed the high school from a preparatory school into 
"everybody's college," in the introduction of commercial 
and manual training courses, the high schools have had no 
assistance from higher institutions of learning. The high 
schools had first to work out these courses and then to dem- 
onstrate that they were equal in value to the older courses 
before they were accorded college recognition. I say this 
not to criticise our universities and colleges; they have had 
problems of their own. These have been our problems and it 
has done us good to wrestle with them. 

Nor has this development been brought about by state 
action, although the state has by very meagre bonuses, en- 
couraged somewhat the establishment of manual training 
courses. The modern high school, then, is not the result of 
outside inspiration or compulsion. It is the result, in the 
first place, of the desire of the masses to seek higher effi- 
ciency through education; and, in the second place, of the 
intelligence and generosity of our best citizenship in meet- 
ing this need. Everywhere the movement for new high 
school buildings, for adequate equipment, for better salar- 
ied teachers has had the hearty and enthusiastic support of 
the large business interests. Nowhere have the large tax- 
payers refused to assume the necessary burdens; they have 
been always the leaders for high school progress. We are 
too apt to lend a pessimistic ear to the demagogue who de- 
nounces our business interests as institutions of greed and 
oppression. The evolution of the high school should make 
optimists of us all. "Where can you find a better example of 
intelligent and generous citizenship and where can you find 
a brighter ray of promise for the future than in this new 
higher education of the masses? 

But if we have a new principal, a new 
The Pupil. teacher, a new equipment, and a new pub- 
lic support, have we also a new pupil? 
Fundamentally, no! The boy is the same ambitious, hope- 
ful, daring, generous, turbulent creature that he was in the 
days when David went forth to meet Goliath, but under new 
environment the same boy appears in a new aspect. 

We have been many times told that a log with James 
Garfield at one end and Mark Hopkins on the other, was a 



university. But notice what this combination has, — a bright 
boy and a good teacher, the only essentials for education. 
Notice, too, what it has not; there is no foot-ball team, no 
skating rink, no pool room, only a log with one boy at one 
end and a good teacher at the other. 

But when, instead of one bright youth, 500 

Relation of ambitious and turbulent fellows perch on 

Teacher one end of the log, even a Mark Hopkins at 

to Pupil. the other would find it some strain on his 

personality to hold down his end of the 
teeter board. Large numbers have necessitated, in the first 
place, thorough organization, and out of this organization 
have grown new and difficult problems. In the first place, 
care must be taken that organization and wholesale in- 
struction do not entirely replace that close personal relation 
of teacher to pupil, that existed when James Garfield and 
Mark Hopkins sat together on the log. No principal, no 
teacher, can hope to maintain any such relationship with all 
the members of a large high school, and yet every teacher 
may have such relationship with some pupils, and if the 
pupils are judiciously apportioned among the teachers, every 
pupil may be reached by some teacher. This can be done for- 
mally by a class officer system. It can be done more effect- 
ively when the pupil does not know that a teacher is his 
class officer, but when the teacher does know that it is his 
duty to enter into the life of certain pupils, to call upon 
them when they are absent from school, to encourage them 
when their work becomes difficult, to sympathize with them 
when death enters the family circle. 

A second series of problems growing out 
Student of this larger organization are the student 

Organizations, organizations. Twenty years ago inter- 
scholastic contests were almost unknown. 
Now one of the problems for some high school students is 
to find time for anything else. These organizations tend to 
multiply in numbers and grow in importance until some- 
times it is difficult to tell "which is dog and which is tail." 
But do not misunderstand me. These organizations are val- 
uable adjuncts to a school system, but they are only ad- 
juncts; they must be kept strictly subordinate to the main 
purposes of the school. This can be done, in the first place, 
by having some considerable portion of the school year in 
which there are no inter-scholastic contests. This end can 
be obtained either by limiting foot-ball, basket-ball, and 
track work to about six weeks each, and by placing the 
declamation and oratorical contests during these athletic 
contest periods, or it can be accomplished by cutting out 



altogether one of these three seasons. In the second place 
there should be a rigid enforcement of inter-scholastic 
scholarship rules; and third, by tactful but firm handling, 
the principal should see that a successful team does not run 
away with the school. A wise school man when he prays for 
victory, will modify his prayer, and say: "Give us victory, 
O, Lord! but not too much victory. Remember that we are 
weak and destroy" us not by overmuch joy." The spectacle 
of a town gone foot-ball crazy, when a successful team 
backed by unthinking people runs away from the princi- 
pal's control, and wrecks a school system, is pitiable. Such 
an occurrence is a tragedy, whose pathos is seldom fully ap- 
preciated. That damage is done to the school sentiment such 
as it will take years to repair, even the casual observer may 
see. But that scholarly ambitions have been nipped in the 
bud, that many lives have been rendered less complete, and 
less useful is not so patent, but none the less true. 

But though we have the same boy spirit, 
A New we have nevertheless a new type of disci- 

Discipline, pline. In the old school, discipline was a 

contest of wits, between the shrewd boys 
and the principal. It furnished a type of training not alto- 
gether useless to the boy and often very valuable to the 
teacher. I suppose many a man that has left the school ros- 
trum to win distinction in politics or business could justly 
attribute his success to that training. But the school is now 
too big, the interests are too many, for the principal to 
spare time for any such enlivening pastime. The boy who is 
inclined to drop a brick-bat into the ocmplicated machinery 
of a modern high school is too dangerous to be tolerated. 
That boy must either learn quickly to control his inclina- 
tions or else seek a smaller and a simpler organization. 



Nor can the modern high school waste time 
The Loafer, upon a boy of leisure who is in school sim- 
ply to spend time. The boy who works 
geometry problems on the pool table and performs physics 
experiments with rings of cigarette smoke can well be 
spared. You will not spoil his future by putting him out, 
for as some one has well said, "The cigarette fiend has no 
future to spoil." 

To loaf in high school is more genteel than to loaf on 
the street, but it is not less dangerous. When a boy loafs 
in high school, he may deceive the public and his parents 
and even himself, into believing that he is trying to do 
something useful. But when he loafs on the street, he and 
everybody else knows that he is simply loafing, and if there 



is any spirit of manhood in the boy or any power of com- 
pulsion in the parents he will be set to work doing some- 
thing; and the only salvation for a boy industrial or mor- 
ally, is to have something to do. There is, to be sure, little 
hope for advancement for the boy who goes early to work 
in a shop or factory, but still less is there hope for a boy 
who in the formative period of his life learns either in 
school or out of it only habits of idleness. 

I said in the opening, that the high school was for 
everybody. I will now modify this. The high school is for 
everybody who wants to work. It is for the slow plodder 
who has not the capacity to get 70%. Do not put him out; 
he is likely to be the first one of the crowd to get into Con- 
gress or the state legislature and he will need all the edu- 
cation he can get. But it is not for the loafer. If after pro- 
longed exposure to the bacteria of hustle, the boy proves 
impervious to innoculation, he had better be eliminated. A 
boy thinks he is in school to acquire information, but he is 
mistaken. All the knowledge that the brightest boy carries 
away in his head would make a very meagre encyclopaedia 
and even that little will ere long be largely out of date or 
forgotten. The boy is in school to learn how to work and to 
overcome the natural disinclination of the race for real in- 
tellectual labor. It makes, then, comparatively little differ- 
ence whether he studies Latin or Manual Training. The im- 
portant question is, "Is the boy in earnest? Is he learning 
to work intelligently and efficiently?" 

The twentieth century high school, then, is a bee hive 
of industry where young men and women of every station 
in life meet on a democratic basis, and earnestly strive to fit 
themselves to do well their part in the earnest, active world 
of tomorrow. 

But what will be the high school of to- 
Are Forces morrow? Will it be larger? Our State Su- 
of perintendent in a recent circular suggests 

Disintegration that forces of disintegration are at work, 
at Work? and that if the high schools do not wake 
up and better meet modern industrial 
needs, they will soon find that Othello's occupation is gone. 
He says that because the high school was asleep to its op- 
portunities, the County Training school came into existence 
to meet a newly felt need. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I plead guilty to having been 
one of a group of men who caused the first County Training 
School in Wisconsin, (and in the United States for that mat- 
ter), to come into existence. I was not the leader, but must 
confess to a share in the guilt. We did not fail to see that 
the city high school might do this work, but we did think 

10 



that a separate institution owned and controlled by the 
County could better arouse that rural interest and co-opera- 
tion essential to success. The County Superintendent would 
be more interested in a school in whose management he 
could have some share. The farmer would take more 
pride in sending his daughter to a school he could call his 
own. The rural district would be more willing to employ a 
graduate of the school if they paid taxes to support the 
school; for they would want to get a return for their money 
and the only way to get a return would be to employ a, 
Training School graduate to improve their school. The 
twenty-two Wisconsin training schools that have been es- 
tablished on the model of the Marathon school seem to prove 
the soundness of the reasoning. But, at any rate, the county 
training school came into existence not because the high 
schools were asleep, but because it was thought that the 
county could more efficiently do the work. 

But have the training schools been a source of disinte- 
gration to the high schools? Of the cities on this chart, 
Antigo, Grand Rapids, Marinette, Merrill, and Wausau have 
training schools. Three of these schools, in attendance in 
proportion to population, are the highest of any schools on 
the chart, and the other two are equalled by only one other 
city on the list. Should the disintegration of these high 
schools continue at the present geometrical ratio for the 
next forty years, every man, woman and child, patriarch of 
ninety and infant in the cradle, will have to be enrolled in 
the high school to furnish the requisite numbers. Yes, high 
schools of cities of the third class will grow, but they cannot 
be expected to continue to increase so rapidly in proportion 
to population, for they are already rapidly approaching the 
point where nearly all pupils of proper age and attainments 
will be enrolled. 



The high school of to-morrow will be larg- 

Agriculture er; will it be better than the high school 

and of to-day? In two recent circulars, our 

Pedagogy. State Suerintendent declares that we are 

asleep to our opportunities; that we are 
devoting all our energies to keeping our schools on accred- 
ited lists of various colleges, and are neglecting the needs 
of our communities. But he does not definitely point out 
any needs that we are neglecting unless it be agriculture 
and pedagogy. As a matter of fact, so far as the cities are 
concerned ,there is absolutely no demand for agriculture 
from the city pupils. As to pedagogy, if you will pardon an 
illustration from my own school, we are offering a full 
year's course in pedagogy, including observation and prac- 
tice work directed by a teacher of wide training and expe- 



rience, but at present we have only ten pupils taking it. 
There is little likelihood of much demand for pedagogy in 
our city schools until a compulsory salary law shall force 
rural school wages up to a living wage. 

Our high schools furnish courses in com- 
The mercial branches, in manual training, in 

High School domestic science, in music, and in drawing, 
of the and I am bold enough to promise for most 

Future. of the schools on this chart that we will 

next year offer instruction in any useful 
branch of knowledge under the canopy of heaven for which 
twenty pupils with serious purpose shall this year express 
a desire. Yes, the high school of to-morrow will be better 
than the high school of to-day. New courses will be added 
as new needs are felt; old courses will be expanded toward 
the trade school idea. Methods, too, will be improved. We 
are not asleep. We do not need harsh criticism to rouse us 
from our slumbers. We are wide awake, but like a boy in 
his teens we have grown so rapidly that we have not yet 
got perfect control of our faculties. We are still a bit awk- 
ward, but with a little patience on the part of our elders 
we may yet be expected to come out all right. 

But how about our relation to the State 
Relation to University? The State Superintendent says 
State that we are too much dominated by col- 

University, legiate influence, that in our effort to keep 

on accredited lists, we neglect industrial^ 
needs. He cites a concrete case where attention to prepara- 
tion for college drove out the boys and left the school with 
one hundred girls in excess of the boys. For a second illus- 
tration will you once more pardon an allusion to my own 
school. In a city of 16,000 inhabitants we have, exclusive 
of tuition pupils, 440 students enrolled. Of these 440, a full 
50% are boys. I trust that these two facts, will protect us 
from the charge that we are neglecting industrial needs, 
and yet, we annually send to college more graduates than 
we put directly into all the industries combined. In the past 
five years more than 50% of all our graduates have entered 
higher institutions of learning. From one class of forty-four 
members, thirty students entered higher schools. And I am 
not ashamed of it; on the contrary, I am proud of it. A de- 
sire to attend college is a more noble ambition than a desire 
to rush half prepared into industry. I would rather see a 
boy who wishes to become an engineer enter the College of 
Engineering than to see him enter a shop; I would rather 
see a boy who wants to lead in commercial circles, enter the 
School of Commerce than to see him take a position as a 

12 



stenographer; I would rather see a girl who aspires to teach, 
enter the School of Education than to see her open the door 
of the rural school house. We sometimes get a notion that 
scarcely any graduates go to college. If this were so, where 
in the world would the thousands of students enrolled at our 
state university and our various state colleges come from? 
To fit pupils for college is indeed one of our most important 
duties. 

But because we fit students for colleges, the colleges 
should not control us or unduly interfere with our curricu- 
lums or our methods, — so far I can agree with the State 
Superintendent, — but do they do so? They already admit 
graduates from our industrial courses, and what more is 
wanted? I have twice acted as chairman of a committee 
sent by the State Principals' Association to confer with the 
University as to credit for industrial branches, and I am 
pleased to say that the University met us more than half 
way — in fact, granted everything we asked. 

But the State Superintendent advocates a 
Relation to law that shall compel the University to ad- 
State mit all high school graduates. Such a law 
Superintendent, would not broaden our courses of study; 

for the University requirements are al- 
ready broader than those of the State Superintendent; but 
it would abolish University inspection. This, it seems to me, 
would produce three results; in the first place, it would take 
away from the University the reasonable right to say wheth- 
er a school has attained the minimum standard of efficiency 
in the branches it does teach; second ,it would take away 
from the high schools the inspiration that comes from the 
visit of the greatest educational institution of the state; 
third and most important, it would concentrate all inspec- 
tional power in the hands of the State Superintendent. This, 
I believe, would be highly dangerous. For the sole inspec- 
tion power in the hands of a person less high minded than 
our present estimable superintendent might lead to the 
building up of a political machine that would be injurious 
to the schools and ruinous to independent thought among 
school men — for what high school man would dare to speak 
when the unchecked report of a single inspector could not 
only secure his discharge from his present position, but 
could prevent his ever finding school employment again in 
Wisconsin or elsewhere? The schools of Wisconsin have 
more freedom under a double inspection system than they 
will have under a single inspection system of any kind what- 
soever. But if we must have a single inspection system, let 
it by all means be vested in a board of eminent educators, 
For two reasons: first, because the board will be more likely 



to appoint as inspectors, men of the highest attainments and 
ability; second, because the inspectors will have less temp- 
tation to reward friends and punish enemies in order to 
build up a machine. 

But I do not wish to do injustice to the 

"Freedom State Superintendent's position. He has 

from struck an important keynote in his phrase 

"Control." "Freedom from Control." I believe he has 

sounded it in all sincerity; and in this, he 
is absolutely sound. We should have freedom of control, 
freedom from the control of the State University, freedom 
from the control of the State Superintendent, and freedom 
from the control of a non-partisan board. Let them all in- 
spect, criticise, and help us. But control should be vested 
absolutely in the communities that created these high 
schools, and that now practically unaided, support them. 
Control should rest with the community in which a high 
school is located for three reasons: first, because the high 
school should be quick to respond to local needs, and outside 
control would render this adaptation more difficult; second, 
because the high school depends for its success upon local 
interest — not merely for money, but also for boys and girls 
and for that spirit of enthusiastic co-operation that alone can 
bring the highest success, and any transfer of control to out- 
side authority will impair efficiency by lessening local inter- 
est; third, because it is only fair that the communities that 
pay all the expenses of the schools should control them. 

Far be it from my purpose to speak a word 
Effect of of disrespect of our State Superintendent, 
State I believe thoroughly in his integrfty of pur- 

Superintendent's pose, and in the sincerity of his interest 
Criticism. in the schools of the state, but though it is 

farthest from his intention, by this public 
spanking, he does great harm. We are striving to build up 
a public sentiment that shall believe in the high schools and 
shall support them with money and with sons and daugh- 
ters. But the Superintendent's circular intimating that the 
schools are asleep but not saying definitely how they can 
be improved, tends to arouse suspicion in those who are not 
posted. It furnishes fuel to inflame the prejudices of the 
knocker and puts the friends of the high school on the de- 
fensive when they should be aggressive. What the high 
schools are to-day, they have made themselves with but lit- 
tle help from college or state department. To-morrow, if left 
to themselves, they will be better and greater than to-day. 
With kindly help from college and state department, they 
may be still greater. To the state department and the col- 

14 



leges we therefore say, "Give us, we pray you, your best of 
encouragement and help; but whatever you do, we pray 
you, if you help not us, at least help not the bear." 

But how about the rural high schools? 

Rural They have, to be sure, been less quick to 

High Schools, respond to modern needs; but to sever the 

ties that bind these schools to the State 
University would not improve them; it would only remove 
a source of inspiration they greatly need. The real key to 
the whole situation is financial. The village is too poor to 
equip and maintain a twentieth century high school. A 
modern high school costs money. When some economical 
tax payer complains to you that your high school costs 
money, don't dispute him. Say, "It does indeed cost money 
and to-morrow it will cost more money that it does to-day." 
The rural high schools would like to teach agriculture, but 
they cannot afford such an equipment as our county agri- 
cultural schools have; they would like to teach pedagogy, 
but they cannot afford to pay salaries sufficient to get teach- 
ers of the grade of our training school teachers. If second- 
ary education is to become efficient in rural Wisconsin, in 
the first place the- village high school must become a town- 
ship high school and must get back of it sufficient power of 
taxation to enable it to meet the modern needs. 

In the second place, the tuition law which 

The Tuition enables a high school to charge tuition of 

Law. fifty cents and no more must be changed. 

The injustice of a law that enables a poor 
high school to make a profit of twenty-five cents, and com- 
pels a good one to lose one dollar each week, on every tui- 
tion pupil, would seem ludicrous were it not tragic. It 
places a premium xipon running a school as cheaply as pos- 
sible; for a weak high school with a large tuition clientage, 
it sets up an impassible barrier against an expenditure of 
more than fifty cents per pupil and every thoughtful man 
knows that a good high school can not be run for anything 
like fifty cents per pupil. "You ought to spend more money 
on your high school," I said to a school board member, dis- 
tributing uncalled for advice with that generosity character- 
istic of a school teacher. "You need more teachers and 
larger salaries," I said, "and a much better equipment." 
"I know it," he said, "but we lose a thousand dollars a year 
on our tuition pupils already and we cannot afford to lose 
any more." It is all right to charge the tuition to the town 
from which the pupil comes, but the law should be so 
changed that every high school could collect just what it 
spends for each pupil, based on sworn and itemized state- 
is 



liiifi 

019 878 918 

ments filed with the State Superintendent. This is, of course, 
onlv iust. The forced charity of the present law is not fair 
to the cities giving it, nor ought it be acceptable to the towns 
that receive it. Unless more money can be found for our 
rural high schools, they must remain weak and inefficient. 

But how about the high schools of our 
High Schools large cities? These high schools have 
of Large shown a marvellous growth, but they are 
CitiesT yet far below the cities of the third class 

in enrollment in proportion to population. 
But the awakening is at hand. These cities are building 
enormous structures, some to accommodate 4,000 pupils 
but they cannot erect buildings large enough nor fast 
enough to keep up with the demands. The next twenty 
years will see in our great cities the same marvellous trans- 
formation through which the smaller cities have just passed 
and the day is not far distant when almost every boy and 
almost every girl of proper age and attainments will be en- 
rolled in our high schools. 

But what is the real significance of this 

The Real great educational evolution, the most as- 

Significance. tonishing and far reaching in the ^story 

&§ of the world? What will it mean in the 

not far distant day when every father in shop and fa ctory 

has been made efficient in "Everybody's College, and when 

evlry mother that rocks her babe, whether ibempaac 

or in cottage, has had her soul awakened to the culture of 

the a |he ? thought staggers one. I can frame no answer. Let 
us for the present seek no answer to this astounding ques- 
tion but let each one of us return to his station and with 
true courage and optimism in his Partake up with re- 
newed enthusiasm his humble, yet important duty ^ of ! help 
ing to train this vast army of young men and women that 
arl to go out to make the world of to-morrow vastly r cher 
and wiser and better and more beautiful than the world of 
to-day. 



CASTLE-PIERCE PRESS. OSHKOSH 



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Hollinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



in RARY 0F C0NGRESS 

019 878 918 5 



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Hollinger Corp. 



